


Cracked: The Crystal Maze

by EmmyAngua



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, The Crystal Maze
Genre: Growing Up, M/M, The Crystal Maze - Freeform, Young Sherlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-18
Updated: 2013-11-18
Packaged: 2018-01-02 00:30:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1050400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmmyAngua/pseuds/EmmyAngua
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock's favourite Christmas ever was spent in the Crystal Maze. Yes, *that* Crystal Maze. To all Americans and/or young people, I apologise in advance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cracked: The Crystal Maze

**Author's Note:**

> I was recently at a meetup in which I espoused my love of Reality TV Show/Sherlock crossovers, silly as they are. I suggested that there should be a Crystal Maze/Sherlock fic and this was interpreted as ‘Emmy’s going to write a Crystal Maze fic’, so here we are. 
> 
> **Notes for Americans and/or Young People**
> 
> Seriously you aren’t going to believe this and you will probably have to look it up. It’s worth it. 
> 
> The Crystal Maze was a popular 1990s British gameshow that has since passed into cult status. Richard O’ Brien (yes, Rocky Horror Richard O’ Brien) led teams around a complex of different game zones (Medieval, Aztec, Industrial, Futuristic, and later Ocean). Each zone had a number of rooms with either physical, mental, skill, or mystery challenges which they had to complete to win a crystal while their teammates looked on and/or shouted advice. If they failed to get out of the room in the set time they were locked in and had to be bought out with a crystal. Each crystal was worth 5 seconds of time in the Crystal Dome in which the whole team competed (buy jumping around trying to catch gold tokens) to win mediocre prizes. Richard O’ Brien pretended to live in the zone with ‘Mummy’ and their never seen butler Ralph and told many stories about his life there, while also playing harmonica at stressful moments and gently mocking contestants. As the budget increased the show found many excuses to get the contestants very, very wet. Entire episodes are on YouTube (it has the best theme music ever and a vast array of nineties hairstyles). There is also an app version.

There was no denying that their father had been an odd man.

Most people, upon inheriting a title and a large amount of land, take up fox-hunting and employ some servants to lord it over. They do not set about building a fantasy labyrinth and filling it with bizarre puzzles and games in which stupidity and weakness are punished by imprisonment. But that was what passed for a hobby to a genius with an acute terror of leaving home and far too much money.

Mycroft and Mummy had been quietly unsure about the whole project without ever going so far as to openly criticize it. Typically it was Sherlock who pointed out the first flaw in the plan.

“You can’t call it the Crystal Maze,” he said over breakfast one morning, tilting his head to get a better look at the scattered notepads and scraps of paper filled with hundreds of ideas and drawings that their father had apparently stockpiled over many years.

“You win crystals, Sherlock, so it’s called the Crystal Maze” said Mummy in a slightly brittle voice. She raised a cigarette to her lips with a shaking hand. This decision was as baffling to her as it was to them, Mycroft had known that at the time, but it had been a long time before he’d recognised the constant stress radiating off her, a sign that she was floundering in a marriage she had little choice in to a man whose mind she couldn’t connect with or comprehend in any way.

“But they’re made of cut glass,” Sherlock said. “They don’t look like crystals.”

Their father picked up his untouched breakfast plate and hurled it at the wall. In the silence that followed he gathered up his papers and left the room.

 

Sherlock loved the Crystal Maze once it in progress.

For a start it was huge, with a thousand different hiding places and he was free to wander around as much as he liked, as long as he kept out of Father’s way. He wasn’t allowed to play any of the games (Father could always tell) but he could lean through the open windows in the Aztec Zone, or look up at the screens in the Futuristic zone, and try and work them all out.

Father liked to surprise them all too. For Sherlock’s birthday he’d cut the ribbon on the nearly-finished Ocean Zone because he was vaguely aware that Sherlock liked boats. Mycroft had gripped Sherlock’s shoulder very hard, which meant that he wasn’t allowed to say that he liked pirates and that this zone looked more like the boring old Titanic (probably because Father had stolen all the old furniture from the attics.)

Mummy received the Aztec Zone, because she was always complaining that she never got to go abroad. It had heat lamps and a fake river and big tropical plants and Sherlock always hoped that one day Father would add some snakes or piranhas for effect. Mycroft got the Futuristic Zone, probably because he’d once been in a room at the same time Doctor Who had been on and Father had assumed he had a life-long passion for science fiction.

The Christmas after that the zone was finally complete and it was the best day ever. Father let them actually play in it and four of them spent the entire day in there. Even Mycroft, who had tried to pretend he was above it all, quickly because engrossed, even if he would only do the mental challenges which were the ones Sherlock had wanted. Sherlock pretended he’d wanted the mystery challenges all along instead, Mummy (who had won lots of trophies at school) was all too happy to swap her party dress for jeans and tackle the physical challenges, and both of them took turns at the skill games. Father was their guide and game runner and, for once, he’d looked relaxed and happy.

The night ended with a big Christmas dinner at the long table in the medieval zone and then father revealed the final piece: the Crystal Dome, which was at least ten times taller than Mycroft, who was the tallest of them all. When he started the fans and the gold and silver tickets swirled around inside, the dome looked like an enormous Christmas snow globe.

Being thirteen was horrible.

When your father commits suicide, and the house begins to fall down, and all the money has been spent, and you _still_ have to go to school, and all grown-ups talk about is how tall you’re getting, and you’re bored all the time, that seemed like exactly the moment to cut someone some slack.

Wasn’t it bad enough that they had to rent out the Crystal Maze?

“It’s only for a week,” Mycroft  explained. “To raise funds. There’ll be a country show too, with tents and stalls.”

And a cake stand. Sherlock didn’t say it, but tried to look like he was thinking it very loudly.

“You could stop this embarassment in a heartbeat,” is what Sherlock actually said.

“Yes I could,” Mycroft agreed. “But Mummy won’t let me. She says she’s enjoying herself and wants to earn enough for a trip to California. If you can work out a way for her not to question a sudden, well-timed windfall and/or free holiday then be my guest. In the meantime, I’ve volunteered you to help her.”

Sherlock would have complained, but ‘helping Mummy’ turned out to mean ‘running the Maze for all the groups that signed up for it.’ It had been a blast until Mycroft had called him to his office after the first game was over.

“You can’t pretend to be Father,” Mycroft said flatly.

“I’m running it exactly like he would have!”

“There were complaints. It’s also unsettling; Mummy’s agreed to be the fortune teller in the Medieval Zone and hearing Father’s voice echoing along the corridor is more than a little off-putting for her.”

Sherlock scowled. “I’ll just be me then.”

“Good grief no. Your customary reaction to a lock-in is to berate the unlucky person for being so stupid.”

“Only when it’s you,” Sherlock muttered.

Mycroft was far too much of a grown up now to protest that he had, in fact, won the game and Sherlock had merely locked him in out of spite. He was clearly desperate to though, which pleased Sherlock enormously.

That night Mycroft cautiously enquired as to how it had gone after their conversation.

“Oh fine,” said Sherlock with a big, fake grin. “I just pretended to be you… but with a sense of humour and the ability to get through narrow spaces.”

 

 

“It’s the Crystal Maze,” said John, faintly.

John was either in shock, or stuck on repeat, as he’d mentioned this several times already. They were on the threshold of the Futuristic Zone, which Sherlock had never liked that much, but John seemed to be interested in Space Things so he’d started there. 

“You own the Crystal Maze.”

“Yes. The camera crews messed it up. There’re only half the number of rooms now. Still, Mummy got her house in California and we got it back when the TV people got bored with it.”

“I used to watch it all the time,” said John wondrously. “I think I tried to write an application letter once, while completely pissed and convinced I was better than half the teams on it.”

“You _are_ ,” Sherlock pointed out.

He opened the door, allowing John to go first. He circled around in amazement.

“I’m not going to lie, I kind of want to phone everyone I’ve ever met and get them down here for a big tournament.”

Sherlock pretended to look horrified. “Not Anderson.”

John laughed. “He did a marathon last year. I got about fifty sponsorship requests. He might be good for a physical challeng,e and we could get Mrs. Hudson in to be-”

“-Mummy,” they finished at the same time with a shared grin.

“We could get Mycroft to come down from the house and do what he usually does: avoid touching anything that might get him messy, wet, sandy, or out of breath. Which is pretty much everything,” Sherlock said breathlessly.

“Or we can get ‘Anthea’ to do one of the games that get you soaked and short circuit her phone so she’d be forced to actually hold a conversation…” John added. They shared a slightly hysterical moment of laughter.

"When you decided that we needed to escape Mrs. Hudson and her huge scary group of American friends-of-a-certain-age for Christmas… this was not what I expected.”

"I can't believe Mycroft invited himself along like some sort of Victorian maiden aunt," Sherlock pointed out bitterly, one of many similar protestations he'd made that day. "Still," he brightened, "we can have Christmas dinner in here again."

John grinned. "And until then we can play?"

Sherlock grimaced. "I've already played them all, and the ones the TV Company made are laughable."  

"Fine, I won't upset your manly dignity by making you play. You can be my tour guide... spending a couple of days mocking me for my lack of genius is probably your idea of a real Christmas anyway."

"But there's only one of you," Sherlock pointed out. "What if you get locked in?"

"I'll buy my way out," John shrugged.

"There aren't any crystals left, bar a few ornamental ones up in the house. The rest are probably all on eBay."

"I'll have to buy myself out another way then," said John.

"I'll have to make sure you get locked in a lot," Sherlock responded, his voice dipping just slightly.

"You can try..."

Sherlock smirked. "So what first? Physical, mental, skill, or mystery?"

"Hmm... physical, I think."

 

**Author's Note:**

> I normally agonise over my work, planning, editing, re-editing, and having emotional breakdowns. But sometimes I turn into a toddler with a finger-painting set and enjoy the fact that I am allowed to write completely daft things. You can probably guess which one of those experiences writing this was. 
> 
> The title was chosen SOLELY because, if anyone ever talked about this fic, they’d have to say “EmmyAngua’s Cracked the Crystal Maze.” The pictures are obviously not mine and are merely there for nostalgia purposes.


End file.
